The invention disclosed herein generally relates to a subsurface sign assembly of the type in which the exterior face plate of the sign is transparent and the graphics are located behind the face plate and visible through the face plate; and more specifically to a subsurface sign assembly that includes a sign plate that can be inserted behind and removed from behind a transparent face plate.
Subsurface sign assemblies typically are used in situations where the sign is subject to deterioration due to weather conditions, vandalism and other conditions. When the graphics of a sign are exposed on the visible surface of the sign, the graphics can be picked or scraped from the surface by valdalism, and the graphics are exposed to weather conditions, etc. which tend to deteriorate the color and other features of the graphics.
While subsurface sign assemblies tend to solve the problems of vandalism and atmospheric deterioration of sign graphics, the typical subsurface sign is a "permanent" assembly, in that the graphics are applied internally to the transparent face plate and the transparent face plate is permanently mounted to an opaque back plate. If the owner of the sign wishes to change the graphics of the sign, the sign must be removed and replaced with another sign bearing the desired graphics.
While various subsurface sign assemblies have been developed in which a sign plate that bears the sign graphics is positioned behind a transparent face plate, and which include the ability to remove the sign plate and to replace the sign plate with another sign plate bearing different graphics, the various structural arrangements of the prior art changeable subsurface sign assemblies have been visually displeasing and the structure which provides the changeable feature of such signs is visible to the observer, so that the observer can change the sign without authorization from the owner of the sign.